Artunderwraps

Annotated Reference Guide to Collectible Books

Rockwell Kent Annotated Bibliography & Selected Collectible Books

The New York Transcendentalist

Little can be said about the explosion of twentieth century American book arts without reference to Rockwell Kent, whose prints, woodcuts and lithograph etchings have become iconic. Rockwell Kent was perhaps, the last of a vanishing breed, molded in the same clay as such American transcendentalists as Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman. He spent much of his time travelling into the then still pristine wilderness of the early 1900's America, and from it gaining spiritual and artistic insight. These reflections informed his illustrations for books on classical plays, history and mythology, and we can see in him still the tradition of the 'New England Classicist' whose love of the ancient world is only met by their love for the natural.

For the collector this is exceptionally good news, as there is still a lack of awareness of how influential artists such as Rockwell Kent really was for the book arts and printing tradition. As galleries favor the more dramatic colors and designs of the surrealists, postmodernists and the abstract expressionists, there is left quite a repository of original works by the artist Rockwell Kent, which can be snapped up by the quick collector.

Keep an eye out for Random House's 1936 translation of Beowolf, with the artists signature thumbprint over the colophon or Harcourt Brace and Co, Gisli, Son of Sour 1936, again with original woodcut prints by Kent.

Whereas an original Rockwell Kent on its own (full size A4, A3, A2) which is one of a kind and signed can set the dedicated collector back tens of thousands of dollars, it is in his role as a woodcut illustrator that some of his most exciting and accessible work can be found. Still today, his work is being utilized by specialist publishers for high quality books such as The Baxter Society's The Jewel: A Romance of Faerieland, originally printed in 1917, but reproduced in a limited number by Baxter in 1990. The joy of collecting someone such as Rockwell Kent, is that not only are there still affordable pieces available, but that you are also aware that you are keeping alive a period of printing history in the early American tradition.